


Looking Through the Glass

by tBrilli4ntD4rkness



Series: Some Kind of Romance - Earth C [2]
Category: Homestuck, Original Work
Genre: (Caused the whole thing heh), Alternate Session (Homestuck), Amnesia, As usual nobody really wins, Blood and Injury, Canon compliant in as much as canon isn't discussed, Character Death, Classpect Powers (Homestuck), Classpect gendering rules don't apply, F/F, F/M, Game-induced amnesia, Homestuck canon mucked things up for Skaia all around, Implied Canon Events, Liberties taken with classpect powers, M/M, Multi, Original Character Death(s), Original Player Characters, Possibly Illustrated, Session collision, Two sessions end up having to fight each other instead, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Love, Void Session (Homestuck)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24315187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tBrilli4ntD4rkness/pseuds/tBrilli4ntD4rkness
Summary: Rise up: Mage of Mind. (This is clearly preposterous, because even with unnatural foresight powers there is no way to ascend to Godtier without having even entered the Game. Try again.)Arise: Mage of Mind. (Better.)On a young, low-tech world, the Mage of Mind has come of age to choose five fellow players with which to participate in a game of worlds. Even as Skaia strikes again, the Game itself is unraveling in the destructive aftermath of an impossible five-session merge, and is pitting sessions against one another in order to bring all running simulations to a close before its pixelated implosion. (Which, due to the paradoxical nature of spacetime, includes nearly any session ever to exist.) Memories will be lost, fellow players forgotten, and the last-first universes to ever be created will form as the final curtains close on Skaia.But you're the Mage of Mind, and you don't know this yet.Distantly related to my Some Kind of Romance universe, but only by alternate self. (Earth C is too precious to have SGRUB inflicted upon it yet.) Also gendered classpect rules don't apply.
Relationships: Anamom | Mage of Mind's lusus & Mage of Mind, Knight of Rage & Page of Doom, Mage of Mind/Bard of Blood, Original Character(s)/Original Character(s), Thief of Space/Witch of Void/Sylph of Life, implied canon relationships - Relationship
Series: Some Kind of Romance - Earth C [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1702075





	Looking Through the Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Never mind that I have three other fics I could be working on, I'll just make this instead.  
> I decided to try a new writing style, as well as chat logs, so when it all comes down to it this is just a multi-faceted experiment with no control group. There's also so many song references worked in here it's either sad or ridiculous.
> 
> Quirk notes:  
> SL: changes double lls to ys, duplicates all punctuation, but only uses periods for emphasis.  
> TS: no capitalization, only uses doubled !! or ??  
> WV: replaces h with 4, only uses commas as punctuation; later picks up ll -> y from Sol.  
> PD: 7337 with 4 for both a and h, and 7 for both l and t; uses apostrophes but no punctuation.  
> HT: Capitalizes for emphasis and after punctuation.  
> BB: makes doubled odd numbers out of their respective vowels, uses many :s instead of periods or commas, no end punctuation unless a question (or !, ?).  
> MM: best syntax, always ends a line with punctuation, usually periods; new lines begun by ;s and most commas, with some exceptions and :s.  
> KR: Capitalizes homonym classpect “puns” (deVoid of Life), uses a great deal of !s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding the chat logs: I choose my hills to die on, and the mountain of coding necessary for a successful pesterlog is not one of them. So enjoy two different fake platforms instead.

There was a hive, once, on the outskirts of a small town. It was a nondescript, functional building before its destruction, the home of a troll and her young human charge. Now the wreckage shows the signs of an attack, walls collapsed inward as though from implosion, burying everything that once was. There is not even a body to be pulled from the wreckage, just the stray smear of purple blood on stone. Part of a folded, spindled photo remains where the hive door would have been, cyan and jade arms around a young purpleblood troll, something so far distant from life of the dead lusus it may as well have been an alternate self. The human she nurtured for so long has come and gone - seen the wreckage at a distance and understood at once what was to come, a lifetime of warnings from her troll caretaker nipping at her heels. The death of a planet, wracked to its core with quakes and ancient paradoxes; a universe destroyed and reborn instantly, should the intervening Game be played well. This the lusus warned of clearly, too clearly to not be a Seer, for she had never been a part of the endless, finite universe-razing arena herself. She had done the best she could with what years she had been given, scant time to prepare a Mage that would survive the trials ahead. Now, at least, her soul can rest uneasy, waiting to see what will become of this attempt. The journey of the Mage is already underway.

\---

Enter: Mage of Mind.

The future Mage of Mind left behind the collapsed walls of her childhood hive, trading the memory of security for the potential to win. Both her past and future were fickle, volatile things dependant on the choices of a team she had not yet met, with whom she must overcome the challenges of a universe that bled away Light and luck as fair price. The road was dry and cracked, its surface marred by the lack of rain, and it would not be an easy way to travel, whether MM left it or not. It had certainly not done so in the hours since she had left ruins and guarded town behind.

The young player chose not to leave through the town, even for directions or better supplies; the end of the world would come swiftly enough to make such things irrelevant, her vision had told her, and there was no map that could lead to where she was going. Besides, she had scanned the faces of the townspeople for years, ever since her Sight had come to her, and knew they did not have what she was looking for. MM remembered her lusus’ first explanation of the spots of color and symbols that hovered across everyone’s forehead, Anamom telling her that her destined Magesight had awakened early and what she saw were the aspects or classes of an individual, one or the other, but never both. The troll nurtured her in the arts of the mind and the Game until MM learned to read people, their intentions and truths, and sometimes even their full classpect with the right context.

MM glanced behind her, once, at the memory - in her Magesight she had long known how the fall of the planet would play out, and that the troll was dead before she ever returned, but it was still a fresh pain to face. No amount of preparation could quite rival the moment MM no longer could See her hive through connection with Anamom’s mind, a comforting fact she had always taken for granted. There was no feeling as ravenously consuming as the guilt and horror of watching leaking purple blood become vibrantly real in her mental eye, and knowing that she was utterly helpless to change what had happened, was about to happen, was happening now.

MM’s mindless feet had guided her nearly into the grasping thorns of a thicket, and as she dislodged herself from scratching arms she saw a cluster of unfamiliar folk on the road ahead, an air of danger to the hammers and scythes they carried. MM knew she would be seen as soon as she turned back, that even with her training she could not fight off half a dozen renegade vagabonds, and yet there was no choice but through. Something called to her that did not come out of the backwater hamlets on the other side of her village, something that promised connection, and time, and perhaps even the unraveled mysteries of an endless expanse.

\---

Rise up: Mage of Mind. (This is clearly ridiculous, because even with unnatural foresight powers there is no way to ascend to Godtier without having even entered the Game. Try again.)

Arise: Mage of Mind. (Better.)

MM awakened to a pounding in her skull and a strange shadow across the very soft ground on which she was lying. There also seemed to be a voice, not her own, which was speaking too indistinctly to make any sense. MM shifted, and the shadow and voice reacted in tandem. One mystery solved. As for where she was . . MM squinted through blurred vision and saw at least two walls nearby, presumably with a roof attached since there was none of the mist from earlier, nor night or sun. Which meant she was most likely draped over someone’s bedding, explaining both the spongy surface and soft material.

In the time it’d taken her to draw up these conclusions, a figure had materialized in MM’s field of vision, speaking softly. There also happened to be a hand across her head, which probably belonged to the same individual. He was dressed in soft gray colors, soothing to the eyes, and MM half expected to see the light green Life symbol floating above in front of his head, or even already stamped across his shirt. Instead, she made out the lines that represented Sylph to her vision, which was an interesting tidbit.

“Hey, you took quite a nasty fall, but I was able to speed up the healing of your skull and arm.” Definitely Life, and right, she’d broken something in all that.

“How long have I been . .” MM’s voice was scratchy, which was fine, because she wasn’t exactly sure how to end that sentence: taking up space in his hive, just out, or in a coma? (The last was statistically unlikely, but then again so was getting beat to a pulp before her grand predestined journey hardly started off down the road. Her lusus had included battle training as part of her future edification, after all.)

“Not very long,” the Sylph assured her. “We found you yesterday.”

A we, then.

MM took a moment to process that, with regard to how soon the death of the planet was coming. A day was perhaps not so bad, but the injuries would continue to slow her. Out of the corner of one eye, MM distantly noted the Sylph’s tight posture, as though he was waiting for an inevitable bell to drop. What sort of awkward question--?

“I’m not supernatural or anything, I’ve just always had a gift for, . mending broken things.” His voice was tight, as though he’d had to diffuse a lifetime of accusations and was pretending it didn’t affect him anymore. Alas, for the life of a Sylph. The perceived oddness was typically more of a Witch trait, or defensiveness that of a persecuted Knight.

MM shrugged slightly, and was reminded that her bones were in fact, very tender at the moment. “You’re clearly Life bound,” she ignored the way the Sylph’s head snapped to watch her in favor of glancing pointedly at the door. “Is this your hive?”

His brow eyebrows twitched inwards, though whether that was from her Mage-driven assumption or her troll terminology MM couldn’t say. “It’s an inn that my parents run. Some people choose to work shifts in exchange for reduced boarding cost. We have a lively operation, a couple buildings.” That meant more to lose in the case of planet-wide catastrophe. A Sylph of Life would certainly be useful for a team, but with property like this - and the undertone of pride in his voice - and with how little she knew about him, chances were too close that he would decline joining an apocalyptic Game, never mind that the apocalypse was already underway.

The door swung in, partially revealing a girl that immediately struck MM as very red, from her sash to her hair and the spinning Time gear floating in front of it. MM felt an immediate, nearly visceral reaction to the sight of that symbol, which was plainly ridiculous: she had plenty of time to find five other players, and this girl might be entirely unsuitable for the operation. Her Mage instincts differed, but indistinctly enough MM couldn’t make out the reason, though it was true that having the best readily prepared players also being the closest were not mutually exclusive traits.

As a result of these thoughts, MM missed the first thing her potential Time player ever said, and tuned back into reality in time to be asked by the Sylph, “Would you like to come downstairs to eat? If you’re feeling up to it, that is.”

MM decided it wasn’t a terrible idea to see what other Aspects this place had to offer.

\---

Convenient timeskip: HT is compiling. (You don’t have to announce yourself. I can See you just fine.)

It had turned out to be a somewhat humiliating process to get down the stairs and into the inn kitchen, after it was proven that MM still experienced the world in a mild state of constant spin on an uneven axis. But the energy gained from eating was worth it, and the food wasn’t half bad either. (MM pushed aside the sudden, strange yearning for her lusus’ grubloaf.)

Mostly, though, she stayed silent and watched the interactions of the other inn residents slash staff. Some, like the Sylph and the girl of Time, appeared to have genuine friendships, but most appeared to have a mutual tolerance of one another. Of the half dozen kitchen aides chowing down, there were only two others of interest: a snarky Thief sporting a compact braid on the side of his head, and a girl bearing the Blood symbol with a dark red lacquered lyre slung over her back. The symbolism of the latter was a bit on the nose: the Blood-colored instrument that represented the Bard class. Whether or not the girl knew of her classpect, she had evidently embraced it, and for all a passively destructive class could be a liability - especially against the aspect of connection - it could also prove to be a key power.

The apparent Bard of Blood caught MM’s searching eyes and suddenly smiled, scooting closer. “So, what have you learned with that flaying sight of yours?” MM was taken aback at her combined brutal honesty and apparent unconcern for Magesight; after a grubhood with her visionary lusus and a town that understood psychics, she had forgotten the noticeable effect that Sight had. Could the Blood-bound girl see the mint Mind symbol floating in her eyes?

MM looked away. “That depends on what you think is worth knowing.”

The girl barked a laugh, and the weeping Blood symbol that hovered beside her flared dark red. “Well, I am curious what would interest a Seer at the end of the world. Anyone with a hint of foresight has been spewing tales of burning blood and earth for years, yet you don’t seem the type to be warning the young generation to pack their husktops and search for the Game.” It wasn’t quite sarcasm, but neither was it idle curiosity in her tone.

“And if I was searching for a team to . . find this Game?” This was a connection MM couldn’t quite dispel the implications of.

The Bard’s expression was at once too cannily knowing for someone who wasn’t a visionary class. “Then I think I would be interested in seeing what becomes of it.” Her face relaxed into a teasing smile as she added, “It seems like a good idea to be on the survival side of the apocalypse.”

MM considered this a moment, forcing herself to belay her automatic agreement with this charismatic figure into a response less hasty. “What can you tell me about your fellows?”

“Just the ones you were staring at inordinately, I presume?” Damn, she was good. “The older boy who looks like he even clips his fingernails with a knife probably does, and he’s onion-layers of ornery sarcastic. He’s been here two weeks and doesn’t talk much with the rest of us; probably wants to, but assumes it’s easier to survive if he doesn’t. Came here alone - no lusus, no parents, not so much as a guide cat.” So, out for himself, but he was experienced and probably without qualms of world-destruction. MM had assumed as much herself, but a second opinion never hurt.

“Interesting. What about the other two - do they have some kind of bond?”

The Bard chuckled. “Not the kind you’re thinking of. The innkeepers’ son is an enigma beyond his constant need to auspisticise, but personally I believe he’s conflicted about whether to leave for a larger town or not. He and the girl grew up together, I’ve been told, but she’s often away now.” A shrug. “Either it’s something to do with the apocalypse, or it’s something to do with getting him to leave; they both have complicated visions of changing the world. But you know, you have to change society first.”

MM acknowledged her profiling with a nod, and found that she rather liked this Blood player, despite her distracting vibrant eyes that triggered a Magesight familiarity just out of reach. It was frustrating, this illogical connection that neither Blood nor Mind seemed willing to justify at the moment. The same went for the others - a feeling not distinctly destiny or bond. MM ran her sight down the mental timelines, but couldn’t see far enough ahead with precision. Evidently, the Game had not chosen her fellow players (yet) and dependent upon her choices was the outcome of an entire session.

Still, perhaps her injury was a sign. It would take weeks to travel to a small city with more options, and here she had a Thief, Blood and Life players, and one half of the all-important duo: a Time-bound. Those weren’t bad odds to begin with, and there was time yet to scour the inn residents for an appropriate sixth Space participant.

“So,” the Blood girl paused. “How about we run an experiment with setting up this Game of yours, Seer?”

“Sure.” MM found she didn’t need to check the futures consciously with the feeling of something falling into place. “And it’s Mage, by the way. But I’ll let you go on that one.”

The future Bard of Blood grinned.

\---

It turned out the Thief was a natural player in addition to having hearing to put spies to shame, and with both him and MM officially in the Game, the impending apocalypse felt a little less like it was slavering over their heads and a little more like the hurricane was, in fact, down the road a ways. This did not dispel MM’s visions of earth cracking and mountains being consumed by the sea, however, and she often woke to remember the price being paid by all those that could not enter. Anamom’s warnings about overpopulated sessions ringing in her ears, she wondered if multiple sessions could come from the same planet.

When neither of their planets were actively trying to kill them, Thief and Mage discussed strategy with their Blood member, who was in the process of convincing the necessary Time player to join. Most often they spoke through Game-chat, but occasionally MM would reappear to gauge the likelihood of the next disaster, and speak in person with her future teammates, leaving the Thief to level up as supersonically as he deemed possible.

“I know you’re the visionary,” BoB (as MM had been thinking of her) said, “But I get the feeling we shouldn’t look for a sixth player.”

MM nodded agreement from where she sat leaned on the wall, ignoring her throbbing bones. “Given that there isn’t much time left, I can’t afford traveling in the hope of finding Space, and leaving the spot open gives us just as much of a chance as choosing a random inn-stayer. If not, there’s ways to Void-Time a way around it, I am sure.” Surely with all the ways to cheat embedded in the Game, frogs could be created another way.

BoB appeared briefly disquieted. “I’d go with you, you know. You’ve clearly proven yourself a visionary that can’t convince legions to join her cause- don’t give me that look, I convinced myself into this. Connection to back up logic, or whatever it was,” she added with a half-grin.

“Yes, you thoroughly proved your ability to conscript players much surpasses mine - in fact, I can’t imagine why Sol and Time are caught in a stand-off over who builds the house of the other,” MM continued in typical fashion.

“And which one has to protect me from my personal murder-planet instead.” BoB finished, looking sullen.

MM felt something physically drop in her psyche, and it had nothing to do with aching ribs. She fished for something to say, and only came up with, “I’m sorry.” The words tumbled out before she realized she really meant them, sounding pained but hopefully sincere. “At least it’s better than dying painfully without seeing the stars? Although instead you get to die painfully several times instead.”

“You don’t apologize often, do you?” BoB asked quietly, a tilt to her head reminding MM how easy it was to read her emotions, but different from her Prospitian lusus.

“You don’t have to be here, if you really don’t want to,” MM evaded. “I have a Time player, and chances are Space as well. You could sit back and watch the world burn and never be troubled again.” Or watch her dead selves collect from doomed timelines, or see if her theories about Thief were correct, or godtier and rule a new universe, her foresight added.

The girl was quiet for a long moment, and MM realized she didn’t actually want the other to leave, as selfish as that might have been. “No, I said I’m coming, and I am. I just wish more people could be saved this way, and less have to be a part of this fated, ill quest.” BoB closed her eyes and tilted her chin up, a strangely trusting move that bared her throat to MM’s troll-raised mind. “I’ll base for whichever of those idiots enters second, and as long as the Game sends a sixth player I’ll be fine.”

She sounded like she was trying to convince herself, and MM decided not to try to persuade her out of her remaining days of free will. “That’s all I can ask.”

That’s more than we deserve.

\---

WV's first contact at joining the game. TOS aspect reveal? their rivalry begins? Time as introducing herself to be an Heir?

Taking out the Dersite royalty was every bit as harrowing a process as foresight suspected, not least because of the echeladder climbing to get there. The first interplanetary battle was utter mayhem. A newly godtiered Thief of Space spent it popping around, always halfway between dragging one person out of the way and causing another disaster on his own. Heir had been . . otherwise occupied with her own concerns. (the way it felt for the blade to slide into MM, is what they were accomplishing so she could godtier. and WV is'nt high enough yet to hop himself over through void or witchyness and couldn't participate. so godtier count is now three, or maybe not on Heir's part because the ambition of Tos but I suppose the knowledge of what needed to happen by Heir. and a mix of both for MM, though don't want her to be first in absol everything.) “”

MM was reminded of younger days in which she fought her destined classpect, once her lusus revealed it. (Had she, too, been a seer?) A visionary who only saw the relation of Mind in potential futures, or the affect of the aspect on others: it was not as active a role as she’d thought she’d wanted, and she had floundered as she raved against the Game’s choices, until she came to a kind of peace with the powers she’d had and what it revealed about the Game in world around her. Now, a guiding hand away in the thick of the action certainly did not seem like such a useless thing to be; a Time player could shape the session to success, but only with the light of a visionary guiding their hand.  
((first interplanetary battle?))

The Game's caveat, of winning. OOH Sol pov of Wait we didn't win but why . . also wait entering the game and finding WV to begin with plus that Thief is the Space player.

\---

(Now): Bard of Bl00d <\---> (Future) Mage of Mind  


How do you f33l?

That is the question.

But you forget: I don’t expect an easy answer

Losing something like a soul, you can’t expect a bit of hope;  
Time and space all folded up in little notes.

Poetic: I wi77 be concerned

I’m losing myself.  
Don’t know how much time has passed.  
All I know is that it feels like forever.

That is what no one ever te77s you  
And you most of a77 would want to know

That and forever feels like home,  
When you’re sitting all alone inside your head.

How much is real: so much to question  
We77: I’m l00king at you through the gla55

While you’re outside looking in, describing what you see,  
Remember what you’re staring at is me.

So: how do you f33l?  
That is sti77 the question

(Past): Bard of Bl00d <\---> (Now) Mage of Mind

Sometimes I still forget: you don’t expect an easy answer.

\---  
Alright just finish the Parts THat Are in the workings, and then ao3 expansion for fill-in with some addit pov battle before KoR and above this chatlog. Perfect for this is the enemy of the good, yeah.  
\---

Enter: ? of ? ((This is before her godtiering))  
In a different universe, an eight-player session was pitted in mortal combat against their Game-chosen rival. At the same time, a conduit of destructive potential contemplated whether or not to betray her fellows. Only eight of the original ten players remained.

Past ? of ? to: ? of ?self:  
Drip drop the rain is Falling  
I hear it all could flood  
One rainy Knight away from losing all she loves

Her faint madness was only ever apparent when she spoke to herself, the price she paid for her aspect. She held in contempt the firmly structured chain of command of her session, centered around a controlling Seer and a hypochondriac Space player, and had wondered of the independence their foes seem to enjoy. She did not trust that her leaders had anyone’s best interest at heart besides their own, and although she understood that she, too, would remorselessly do all manner of things to protect what she must, she could not absolve their crimes. There was only one person who could sway her viewpoint, the person she would tame her budding capriciousness to protect; it was also the person that would drive her over the line of loyalty to defend at all costs.

To: ? of Doom:  
Our personal arMageddon has given me an idea

3X9741N 70 M3 1N 93R50N  
W43R3 W3 4R3 N07 QU173 50 VU7N3R4B73 70 51G47 D15C0V3RY

So she explained to him, through mild classpect puns, what she intended. And then, gripped by righteous passion, dared not look in his eyes to see her hope shattered.

To: ? of Doom:  
So what do you think!  
How would you like to Intersect with the Light of our enemies?

Y0UR3 741NK1NG 0F F1N477Y 9U771NG 7447 R4G3-FU3L3D D15GU57 70 U53

Whatever it takes my dear, to fix this

743N 1 W177 83 W174 Y0U 0N 17  
Y0U KN0W 7447

Then she waited for the cogs to turn, having told him everything, on the planet that kept trying to kill her with all the harshness the Game directed against its Knights and Princes. With his help she would drain the corruption of a team that never had a Hope without a Time player. It will be a very long time before she met those she has thrown in her fury with, but in the mean Time her subtle sabotage would allow her to defend who she must until he was safely (safer) Godtiered.

(And they would both live.)

To: ? of Doom:  
Is it set up?

Y35 17 15

Then let’s Do This Thing

7375 M4K3 7415 44993N

She did not savor anarchy, as some of her inclination did, but she would clear the false stability of her no-longer Seer from her lungs, and the revolution fueled would decide the fate of two sessions. The open potential of the universe to come would Breathe freely. She was young and untested, but she planned to win.

(This she believed.)

(Present) ? of ? <\---> (Present) Broadcast

Hello!

To whom am I speaking?

A person with a proposition  
I Suggest you have your Seer read closely!

“”


End file.
